4 ms·

After having tried several approaches to minimalist text authoring, such as FocusWriter and pure text editors, WordGrinder is now my preferred tool for the job.

After having tried several approaches to minimalist text authoring, such as FocusWriter and pure text editors, WordGrinder is now my preferred tool for the job. Running in an xterm it's fast, distraction free and easy to use.

dotancohen 2y ago
What do you use it for? I'm trying to think of the use case where Markdown in VIM is not enough, but LibreOffice is too much. For what it's worth Bash is my file manager and I practically live in the CLI. I do write some technical documentation to go with my code, in Markdown. I recently wrote a long report in LibreOffice for a medical malpractice suite - I made extensive use of headings, paragraphs, quotes, tables, and bold text. My work templates have page headers and footers with page numbering, sparse embedded graphics, tables, a table of contents, and sometimes code snippets with syntax highlighting. Additionally, all my document types use RTL text, which WordGrinder does not support. So I am more interested in the general feasibility of such an app, than in actually trying to replace LibreOffice with WordGrinder (at least until RTL support is added).
- a_petrov 2y ago
  I find myself more and more into the CLI and recently got introduced to Neovim. Decided to start learning Neovim by simply writing markdown documentation and I'd say it's even intuitive. That works pretty good with markdown files hosted on github pages as I don't have to move out of the CLI when pushing them online. However, the use case that this workflow doesn't cover is when I write something that I'd like to send for a proofread to a friend of mine, who's an editor. He really loves his Word files. As I'm a noob, I asked then ChatGPT to help me with a bash script that converts that .md file into a .doc file using pandoc. That worked pretty well. My thought was if it couldn't be possible to use something like pandoc for converting an .md file into a templated doc with headers, footers, page numbering, even toc? That wouldn't solve 100% of the use cases, but still could be pretty good.
- arexxbifs 2y ago
  Prose, mostly essays. It highlights misspelled words, it's got a nice "compact paragraph" mode, basic keystrokes behave as I expect them to.
- tomjen3 2y ago
  LibreOffice can handle a lot (I don't know if it can do the more fancy font features LaTeX can yet) so the case here would be to stay on the command line. And Markdown, well, its great in that it is simple, but I tend to hit its limitations very quickly for more complex setups - plain markdown won't do anything but the most simple tables, and of course, there is no way to define styles. I would suggest that your use case is probably better suited for something like LaTeX (or Tex, for more direct control), og ngroff/troff if you want speed. Maybe Typist for a more modern take?

dotancohen 2y ago

What do you use it for? I'm trying to think of the use case where Markdown in VIM is not enough, but LibreOffice is too much. For what it's worth Bash is my file manager and I practically live in the CLI. I do write some technical documentation to go with my code, in Markdown. I recently wrote a long report in LibreOffice for a medical malpractice suite - I made extensive use of headings, paragraphs, quotes, tables, and bold text. My work templates have page headers and footers with page numbering, sparse embedded graphics, tables, a table of contents, and sometimes code snippets with syntax highlighting. Additionally, all my document types use RTL text, which WordGrinder does not support. So I am more interested in the general feasibility of such an app, than in actually trying to replace LibreOffice with WordGrinder (at least until RTL support is added).

a_petrov 2y ago
I find myself more and more into the CLI and recently got introduced to Neovim. Decided to start learning Neovim by simply writing markdown documentation and I'd say it's even intuitive. That works pretty good with markdown files hosted on github pages as I don't have to move out of the CLI when pushing them online. However, the use case that this workflow doesn't cover is when I write something that I'd like to send for a proofread to a friend of mine, who's an editor. He really loves his Word files. As I'm a noob, I asked then ChatGPT to help me with a bash script that converts that .md file into a .doc file using pandoc. That worked pretty well. My thought was if it couldn't be possible to use something like pandoc for converting an .md file into a templated doc with headers, footers, page numbering, even toc? That wouldn't solve 100% of the use cases, but still could be pretty good.
arexxbifs 2y ago
Prose, mostly essays. It highlights misspelled words, it's got a nice "compact paragraph" mode, basic keystrokes behave as I expect them to.
tomjen3 2y ago
LibreOffice can handle a lot (I don't know if it can do the more fancy font features LaTeX can yet) so the case here would be to stay on the command line. And Markdown, well, its great in that it is simple, but I tend to hit its limitations very quickly for more complex setups - plain markdown won't do anything but the most simple tables, and of course, there is no way to define styles. I would suggest that your use case is probably better suited for something like LaTeX (or Tex, for more direct control), og ngroff/troff if you want speed. Maybe Typist for a more modern take?